


Dragonfruit Jelly

by dancingwithwings



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Both are suffering, Dragons, F/F, Fluff, Kiyoko helps out at the dragon shelter, Magical Realism, Pining, Yachi runs a jam shop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-05 05:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10298603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingwithwings/pseuds/dancingwithwings
Summary: Other than the occasional breakfast slip-up, Yachi loves her job beyond all else. What better place to be than curled up amongst tottering jam jars and paintings, listening to the shrieks of your potion-college as he tries to concoct a boil remedy? It’s a good life to have, growing fruit, making art and rooming with Hinata; this Yachi knows. And, despite the fact that she sometimes eats gout remedy on toast, she is happy.However. There is one tiny problem with running a jam shop in a world entwined with magic.Orchards are very hard to maintain, especially when the dragon shelter next door doesn’t know how to keep their doors locked.In which Yachi's can't help getting into sticky situations, and Kiyoko's just the girl to rescue her.





	1. Chapter 1

_I did not sign up for this,_ Yachi thinks as she swats at the dragon with a broom.

All things considered, it’s a very pretty dragon. As an artist, Yachi can admit this. Opalescent eyes and translucent wings, scales the colour of sunlight on honey; if she weren’t so busy trying to knock it out the tree, Yachi would take a picture. Play with the colour a little, capture its beauty in pixel form. _It’s not often you get to see a dragon up close,_ she reminds herself as she teeters on the step-stool. _Truly a moment to be cherished._

She pokes it with the broom and is rewarded with growls and snapping teeth. _If I get out of this alive, of course._

The dragon hisses at her, tiny fangs bared, and she tightens her grip on the handle. Its gemstone eyes narrow – almost as if it’s glaring at her, if dragons could glare – and she stares right back, brandishing the broom like a weapon. 

“Don’t you mess with me,” Yachi says bravely. “I’m a black belt in, uh, sweeping.”

Apparently unfazed by her martial arts prowess, the dragon spits in Yachi’s face.

“Rude,” she mutters, wiping drool from her cheeks. _At least it didn’t start breathing fire._ “I only wanted to pick some peaches.”

It regards her with an unimpressed eye, and Yachi sighs. _Why do dragons happen to good people?_

Yachi is a good person. She knows this, because everyone tells her so. There is rarely a customer that comes into her little jam shop (well, not _entirely_ hers, and not _entirely_ a jam shop, she reminds herself as a fuming, potion-covered Hinata materializes in her brain) and leaves without a smile - _and,_ more often than not, a jar of peach preserve in their hands. Yachi makes amazing jams. Yachi’s jams are the talk of the town.

So yes, Yachi _knows_ she’s good at her job. The cluttered potion shop – peach jelly sold alongside magic ailment cures, the one-stop-shop for anyone in need of a fix (food or otherwise) – can testify. She eats them herself when customers are scarce: the jams, not the potions, though she _has_ had some ‘culinary experiences’ over the time she’s been making them.

(“A culinary experience,” Hinata had called it once, in between laughter, as Yachi tried her best not to vomit toast-and-plague-remedy all over the floor.) 

Other than the occasional breakfast slip-up, Yachi loves her job beyond all else. What better place to be than curled up amongst tottering jam jars, listening to the shrieks of your potion-college as he tries to concoct a boil remedy? It’s a good life to have, growing fruit, making art and rooming with Hinata; this Yachi knows. And, despite the fact that she sometimes eats gout remedy on toast, she is happy. 

However. There is one tiny problem with running a jam shop in a world entwined with magic. 

Orchards are very hard to maintain, _especially_ when the dragon shelter next door doesn’t know how to keep their doors locked.

(The dragon nips at her fingers, and Yachi damn near falls off the stool.)

Ok, so maybe this problem is a little more than tiny.

Picking herself back up, Yachi takes a closer look at her assailant. The dragon itself is minute, measuring no more than a forearm from nose to fork-tipped tail. Glancing back at the shop from between the fruit trees, she wonders how such a miniscule creature could inspire so much terror. 

_All I want to do is pick peaches,_ she implores of the sky, swatting at the dragon once again. _Let me make jam. It’s all I want in life._

She thinks a little. _Apart from maybe a girlfriend, too._

Caught in these wistful thoughts and quite possibly the step-stool, still trying her best to dislodge the dragon, Yachi doesn’t hear the girl approaching. All she can think of is her impending death by dragon-breath, what a fantastic obituary that would make, and also what would happen if the orchard burnt to a crisp before she had the chance to harvest all her peaches. 

(Her nervous tendencies never seem to help much in these situations, either.) 

“Need a little help there?”

This time, Yachi really does fall off the stool.

***

“She’s our _serpentum germinabunt,_ I think,” the girl says softly, glasses glinting in the sunlight. Her hands are clasped around the Yachi’s assailant, one very indignant dragon: the poor creature squirms in her grip, distended belly (a feature Yachi had put down to eating too many peaches) sticking out in its distress. The girl casts an experienced eye over its body. “Full of milk too, by the looks of things.” 

Her expression one of utter gratitude, she tucks the dragon under her arm, ignoring the look of disgust twisting its reptilian face. “Thanks for finding her! We were worried sick at the shelter; it looks like she went off to forage for food. She left her eggs behind, though. Couldn’t bear the thought of the babies starving - have you ever seen a dragonling? Adorable, those things, but without a mother’s influence they’ll blow your head off, soon as look at you.”

(The significance of this is lost on Yachi, whose brain has decided to implode.)

Yachi is a smart girl. She’d studied hard in school; taken art and science workshops whenever she fancied. Normally, she would’ve been intrigued by the fancy terms the girl has attached to this unfortunate creature, or have clamoured for a camera to capture its expression. 

But that was past Yachi. Present Yachi has no intent of moving from this position ever again. 

Her dungarees are muddy. Her hands are scratched from the dragon’s claws. She has a bruise on her forehead from where she didn’t quite miss the stool as she fell.

But this girl is here with her.

And this girl is _pretty._

The most beautiful dark hair Yachi has ever seen – black as an angry sky, and _is it scattered with stars or is that the dizziness talking?_ – cascades over petite shoulders, leading down to a, well, a figure that Yachi is definitely not looking at, nuh-uh, no way. 

( _Well,_ internal Yachi reasons, _maybe a little.)_

Her eyes are soft grey, just like love interests in the cheesy romances Hinata’s partial to - _ironically,_ as he always insists – and her mouth is small and – _shut up Yachi, now is not the time_ \- kissable. Just like all the star-struck couples in the shoujo anime, Yachi is pretty sure their height difference – around a head, perfect for make-out sessions – has been written in the stars. As if that wasn’t enough, tiny freckles constellate upon her cheeks; a beauty mark adorns her chin, and dark eyelashes swim behind thick-lensed glasses. 

Glasses with pink rims. 

_Pink rims, to go with those beautiful grey eyes._

_Is she my soulmate? I think so._

She sighs contentedly, away in a world of her own, where dragons don’t raid orchards and appreciating other peoples’ faces by maniacally staring is allowed. Socially acceptable or not, Yachi can’t help it: not only does this girl look like she’s stepped straight out of a chick-flick, but she wears glasses that compliment her eye colour. And she can wrangle a peach-stealing dragon. 

Inner Yachi nods approvingly. A match made in heaven, if ever she saw one.

(Yes, she makes all these deductions in a minute or less, but is she really to blame? With the combination of the dragon encounter, her impromptu fall and the appearance of this beautiful stranger, Yachi thinks she might just swoon.)

“…Excuse me miss, are you ok?”

Yachi blinks, realizing that the world has not been spinning with her, and she has indeed been gawping at aforementioned stranger’s face for the past minute. Said face is now very close to hers. _Damn._ Judging by her reflection in those sinful pink-rimmed glasses, Yachi realizes that she really needs to do something about that blush. 

She sticks out her hand, narrowly missing the dragon as she does so. “Yachi Hitoka. Pleased to meet you.”

Bemused, but smiling nonetheless, the girl takes her hand. “I’m Shimizu Kiyoko, from the dragon shelter over the way. The pleasure is all mine.” 

At this information, Yachi briefly considers asking her about the reliability of her door locks, but decides it may not be the best wooing strategy: her previous flirting fails are embarrassing enough without a neighbour to add to the mix. She settling for wringing the dragon girl’s hands, hoping beyond hope that her cheeks have decided to calm down. Over the beating of her heart - she should probably invest in a defibrillator for these kinds of moments - she notices how rough Shimizu’s hands are: the skin is littered with half-healed scars, matching the shape of the dragon’s weathered talons.

Perhaps a result of this discovery, Shimizu withdraws to adjust her hair self-consciously. The air turns slightly sour. _Dammit, Hitoka,_ Yachi curses under her breath. _Now you’ve made it awkward. You’re going to have to shave your hair and change your name. Maybe move house. The neighbourhood over seems a good choice –_

The smile that interrupts her ponderings, although a little manufactured, may be the most beautiful smile Yachi has ever seen. 

( _A different planet,_ she decides desperately. _Oh fiddlesticks. As if I could get any gayer._ )

Thankfully, however, Shimizu seems to take Yachi’s curiosity with a pinch of salt. “Yeah,” she says, gesturing. “Side effect of working with dragons. Gotta suffer for my art, I guess.” Shimizu scratches the neck of the specimen under her arm, which relaxes entirely at her touch. Yachi gapes. _Is this really the same creature?_ “Running a dragon shelter is anything but pretty.”

Biting back her response of “unlike you” (because she may have just shamelessly imagined a whole lot of situations that she is _never_ going to address out loud, but Yachi does have _some_ principles), she bows her head in flustered apology. “It’s fine,” she says hurriedly. “My partner makes potions, so his hands are kind of messed up, too.”

(It takes a quizzical – _and is it her imagination but slightly disappointed too –_ look from Shimizu and a few seconds of awkward silence for Yachi to realize the connotations of what she’s just said, and begin to completely combust.)

“NOT my boyfriend,” she splutters, wringing her hands pathetically. Shimizu starts to giggle, all traces of fake smiles gone. “My partner! For the shop! I run a jam shop!” _Good Lord, Hitoka, get your tongue under control._ In the reflection of Shimizu’s glasses, her cheeks are a spectacular shade of crimson. She grimaces, mortified. “The jam shop right there! I’m going to stop talking now!”

Shimizu is still laughing. Yachi has never felt such a distinct urge to throw herself into the sun, or maybe bury herself in the orchard and be done with it, and that’s saying a lot - a chronically nervous disposition and her tendency to ramble have never been a good combination, and Yachi has landed herself in a good deal of sticky situations over the years. 

(Highlights including trying to convince the local police officer that the shop was not, in fact, a drug den - Hinata had to get her out of that one, but it did result in him scoring the guy as a boyfriend, so at least that turned out well. Buying a dozen crates of dubious saplings off a travelling merchant solely because he complimented her dress, however ridiculous it sounds, was not such a fruitful experience.)

Yachi is the _queen_ of compromising situations. 

But as she looks up into the shining, chick-flick eyes of Shimizu Kiyoko, neither of those incidents, or the many others she’s endured besides, have even come _close_ to matching the embarrassment she’s feeling now.

Shimizu smiles and tentatively pats her on the shoulder, eyes still glittering with mirth. “I know you run the shop, Hitoka-chan. I may be new to the shelter, but my two coworkers are always raving about your jams. I’d love to try one sometime.”

(If Yachi thought she was combusting before, it had _nothing_ on what’s happening now.)

“Sure,” she squawks, pretty sure steam is beginning to pour from her ears. “I’ll bring one over. And I’ll make sure it’s not boil cure. Because take it from me, potions do not taste good on toast -”

She slaps a hand over her mouth – _shut up Hitoka shut up shut up_ – but it’s already too late: once again, Shimizu has started to giggle. Yachi has no idea how this day could get any worse, but compiles a quick mental list to be sure of it.  
__  
1\. Dragon eats my peaches.  
2\. I fall off a stool, just as an impossibly beautiful lady comes to my rescue.  
3\. I attempt to partake in civilized conversation, and ends up embarrassing myself further in front of aforementioned beautiful lady.

Her musings are interrupted by the appearance of two heads over her orchard wall, and the abrupt stop of Shimizu’s laughter.

“Kiyoko-saaaaaaaan!”

_4\. Whatever the heck this is._

Suddenly there are two more strangers in her orchard – _who knew the wall was so easy to climb?_ – but at least Yachi recognizes these ones slightly: they’re the guys from the dragon shelter, the ones who keep turning up to beg for Hinata’s potions. And sneak all the jam samples when they think her back is turned. She never thought she’d see them outside the shop, but hey, after the events of this morning, anything is possible. 

Both of the troublemakers are very much here, in her garden. And, by the ringing of her eardrums, making quite a ruckus.

“Kiyoko-saaaan,” the taller one wails, and Yachi could swear she sees tears in his eyes. “We thought we’d never see you again…”

The shorter one takes up the case. “But she’s found our blossom dragon! See, Tanaka, I knew we could trust her. Our brightest and most beautiful never fails to succeed.”

(Shimizu looks less than amused, as does the dragon, though Yachi thinks she can see a fond twinkle in her eyes.)

The shorter one – _Nishinoya,_ a name she’s picked up from Hinata’s fragmented conversations – stops fawning over Shimizu for just enough time to acknowledge Yachi’s existence. His face splits into a grin as he points an ecstatic finger at the peach in Yachi’s hands, a foghorn voice bursting from his mouth.

“Hey, it’s the jam lady!”

_“Noya…”_ Shimizu scolds – the first time she’s spoken since the two boys arrived – but Yachi is too out of it to care. 

_The jam lady,_ she thinks distantly. _Has a nice ring to it._

Shimizu is less accepting of this new, eccentric nickname. “Her name is Yachi Hitoka, not the jam lady. Come on. We’d best get back to the shelter: this dragon is just about ready to burst.”

Pulling exaggerated dejected faces, the troublemakers head back over to the wall, giving Yachi good-natured winks as they go.

(“Kiyoko-san is so talkative when she’s with you,” Noya whispers as he passes. “Next time you have to tell us all your secrets, ok?”)

_(Next time?_ Yachi thinks bewilderedly.)

Having successfully staved off her coworkers, Shimizu turns back to her, expression filled with apology. 

“Sorry about that,” Shimizu says softly. “They’re a little overbearing.”

Yachi can see why the boys would choose to work at the shelter – they almost resemble dragons themselves, filled with energy, bright-eyed, grinning. She nods slightly, an exhilarated smile spreading across her face. This day _has _been interesting.__

“I should get back to the shelter now,” Shimizu continues, scrutinizing the dragon under her arm. She notices a tear in its wing, no doubt a result of the earlier scuffle. “Should probably get something on that, before it gets any worse. Sorry for the intrusion!” 

“My partner could probably make a salve for it,” Yachi blurts, all too aware that she does not want this encounter to end. “The wing, I mean. And not my boyfriend. My _work_ partner.” 

Shimizu laughs again, and Yachi tries her level best to imprint the sound in her brain. “I know. And that would be great - if he could have it ready for tomorrow, you could bring it over, right? We’re just next door.” She turns to go, velvet hair swishing behind her. “Thank you ever so much, Hitoka-chan!" 

Yachi bows for the last time, and is once again reminded of the state of her dungarees. “No, thank you, Shimizu-san. For rescuing me from that dragon. And, well, everything else.” 

Shimizu turns back. “I didn’t do much, Hitoka-chan, I just got her down from the tree.” One last smile graces her features. “I’ll see you tomorrow, at the shelter. And you can call me Kiyoko, if you like.” 

Only one thought crosses Yachi’s mind as Shimizu – no, _Kiyoko-san_ walks away. 

_Dammit._

_I guess I really did sign up for this, after all._


	2. Chapter 2

“Hinata,” Yachi groans, spreading the entire length of her body over the sofa, “Why do dragons happen to good people?”

“I don’t know, Yacchan,” Hinata replies absent-mindedly, not paying any attention whatsoever. However rude this may seem, it’s for good reason. His focus is glued to the contents of the cauldron in front of him, which have turned a rather frightening shade of green in the past couple of minutes and now look positively radioactive. Panicked, he casts his eyes about the workbench, evidently searching for some form of miracle. 

Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t find it. “Yacchan, you’re sitting on my spellbook.”

“Whoops, sorry.” Yachi shifts a little to hand him the leather-bound volume, wincing as the cover digs into her spine. She throws a hand over her forehead in anguish. “Anyway. I was just trying to pick some peaches, Hinata. My sole purpose was to pick some peaches. And there was a _dragon_ in the tree, can you believe it? I nearly had a heart attack… why does this always happen to me?”

She pauses, looking over at Hinata for dramatic effect, and sighs when she realizes that he hasn’t taken in a word. Nevertheless, she continues. “But then, the strangest thing happened, Hinata, honestly –“

“You didn’t manage to convince _another_ officer that your shop was a drug den, did you?” A familiar voice enters in the form of Kageyama Tobio, Hinata’s boyfriend and resident police officer of the village. Abandoning his potion (now bubbling at an alarming velocity) in favour of getting the biggest rise out of Kageyama as possible, Hinata bounds across the room and tackles his boyfriend to the floor.

“Kageyama!”

(Given Hinata’s perpetual state of being covered in potion ingredients, Kageyama’s expression is less than impressed. Despite this – only because she knows him so well - Yachi detects the beginnings of a smile on his face.)

“No, silly,” she says, crossing the room to give his hair a good ruffle. Since the initial awkwardness over the drug store incident, it’s taken a while for Yachi to get used to Kageyama’s presence, but now he’s as good as one of the family – if she, Hinata and a bunch of miscellaneous jam-pots can be counted as a family.

(Hence the hair ruffling. A dangerous pastime it may be, but Kageyama’s disgruntled scowl is well worth the risk.) 

This time, however, it’s quickly replaced with a quizzical stare, evidently at a loss in terms of this miraculous event. Yachi grins and sticks a thumb into her chest. “I may or may not have landed myself a date!”

Hinata’s head whips round at light speed, a massive grin spreading over his cheeks. Too late, Yachi realizes the impending consequences of this confession. And the fact that calling ‘bringing over healing salve for a pregnant dragon’ is hardly a textbook synonym for ‘date’.

Nevertheless, ‘too late’ is operative phrase.

“Guaaahh, Yacchan!” Hinata yells once he’s knocked her over in a satisfactory hug and Yachi is wheezing on the floor. “That’s fantastic!” He squeezes her again, squashing all the air out of her lungs. “Who with? Do we know her? Is she cute?”

 _Ugh._ “Not… really… a date,” she coughs out. “More… like… going… over… to her place…”

“Ooh, how forward of you, Yacchan,” Hinata winks, and Yachi groans, turning a brilliant shade of crimson. 

“No! No, that’s not what I meant…”

By the look on Hinata’s face, there’s no getting out of this one. Thankfully, Kageyama comes to the rescue.

“Let me get this straight,” he says, confused, and Hinata snorts at his choice of words. “You went out to pick peaches. There was a dragon. And then suddenly, you have a date? How the hell does that work?”

Yachi wriggles out from underneath Hinata’s legs, dusting herself off. _Gross._ Although they were already wrecked from the morning’s escapades, her dungarees are looking suspiciously sticky, and she doesn’t even _want_ to know what ingredients have been scattered on her roommate’s floor.

She puts it out of her mind. “The girl from the shelter next door. She saved me from the dragon, and she wants me to go over there tomorrow to see it.” At Hinata’s suggestive expression, she chokes. “To bring over healing salve! That’s it! Which is what I was going to ask you about, incidentally: could you make a potion to heal a dragon’s wing?”

“Sure, I’ll whip you up a salve,” Hinata says, grinning. “If you tell me one thing. This girl, is she pretty?”

Before she can help herself, images of velvety hair and soft smiles flicker in Yachi’s mind, prompting her to emit a dreamy hum and open her mouth to reply. Somewhere deep down inside, she knows this is a bad idea, but hey, that dragon _really needs_ a healing salve. And somehow, she’s managed to overcome her extreme awkwardness with somebody other than these guys – enough to actually get her a _date._ If that isn’t a good enough reason for her to go on about Shimizu, what is?

“Yeah, definitely,” she begins, and knows instantly that the battle is lost. “Her hair is like the night sky and she looks like the main character in a chick flick, and _oh Lord_ did I mention her glasses? They match her eyes, it’s truly beautiful, and she has this _exquisite_ little beauty mark on her chin… shut UP, Hinata, come on, it isn’t funny!”

But it’s too late: Hinata is already rolling on the floor, laughing his fluffy ginger head off. Kageyama punches his shoulder exasperatedly. 

“You’re not exactly being much of a help here, dumbass. We’re supposed to be supportive when our friends have gay crises. That’s what you told me last time, anyway.”

“We don’t talk about last time,” Yachi says hurriedly, as Hinata dissolves into fresh peals of laughter. Her last crush – a regular customer who’d had the most _gorgeous_ eyes Yachi had ever seen, bar maybe Kiyoko’s – had reduced her to stammers every time she’d entered the shop, creating many awkward situations that Hinata’d had to bail her out of. The best one had been Yachi’s suggestion that she try a sample of her favourite jam, in case she wanted to buy it - except the particular jar she’d decided to pick up was not, in fact, full of jam. The girl’s face had been a spectacle as she struggled to pretend that ‘toad-slime-on-toast’ (a wonder for curing flu) was in fact a wondrous delicacy. 

This incident was an embarrassment Yachi is _not_ likely to forget.

“Poor Yukie,” Hinata chortles. “Her tastebuds will never be the same.”

 _I suppose he has the right to laugh, after all the crap I put him through,_ Yachi thinks miserably. _Still, I know there’s plenty to laugh at. Curse my little gay heart. Why must I fall in love with every woman I see?_

 _(Kiyoko-san is NOT ‘every woman you see,’_ internal Yachi reasons. _You two are a match made in heaven.)_

 _(Shut up, Hitoka,_ external Yachi replies.)

As a distraction, she grabs a handful of Hinata’s ginger hair, resisting the urge to yank it. “Come on, Hinata, I’m really in a pickle. This girl – Kiyoko-san - she saved me from the dragon, and I can’t just thank her by bringing over a jar full of healing salve.” She glances at Kageyama, who’s looking fondly into Hinata’s eyes. _Gross. Gross AND useless._ “Help me out here, would you?”

“I think you’re on your own, Yachi,” Kageyama says gravely, pulling his boyfriend into his lap to tickle him. Yachi pretends to vomit. Kageyama may ordinarily seem scary as an officer on patrol, but nothing reduces him to a pile of goo like Hinata can. 

Nevertheless, she flinches as he sticks a finger into his boyfriend’s chest. “This dumbass here doesn’t know the first thing about romance. Do you know what he got me for Valentine’s this year? A spaghetti fork.”

“It was romantic!” Hinata protests. “Like that dog movie! Lady and the Tramp!”

“It was a spaghetti fork,” Kageyama repeats, eyebrows raised. “Case closed. Anyway,” he continues, ignoring Hinata’s offended glares, “you’ll be fine. By the sounds of things, she’s just as smitten with you as you are with her. Why else would she invite you over? She’s probably got a million jars of healing salve already.”

Yachi’s heart deflates a little at this, and then swells at the realization: _this means Kiyoko really does want to see me again._

Kageyama grins at the look on her face. “You’ve got some peaches, right?” 

Yachi nods, recalling several baskets she’d harvested the day before. After the dragon incident, she’d completely lost the nerve to climb another fruit tree.

“Bring over some peach jam. She’ll love it. And you, dumbass,” he says to Hinata, giving him a shake, “had better get started on that healing potion. It’s Yachi’s ticket to the date of her life.”

_Damn. Who’d have thought Kageyama was such a romantic?_

(Apparently Hinata is having the same idea, as he pokes his boyfriend in the stomach: “You love machine, you.”)

“Why are you so invested in this?” Yachi enquires. “You’ve never even met this girl. For all you know, she could be a serial dragon killer.” 

_Wait. What if she IS a serial dragon killer… and I’ve just let that poor little peach dragon fall right into her clutches._

_Well I’ll just have to go and get it back, won’t I?_

Kageyama shakes his head, as if sensing her ridiculous thoughts. His police-officer grin – the one that Hinata labels ‘creepy’- spreads across his cheeks. “Why wouldn’t I care about this? Our Yachi’s got a date. And hey, if miss Dame-in-Shining-Armour really is a serial dragon-killer, at least I’ll have something interesting to work on, right?”

Yachi’s face breaks into a beaming grin. Before she has the chance to say something grateful, utter dread leaks over Kageyama’s visage. She pauses, confused.

“Kageyama?”

“Shit.”

“You’re so vulgar, Yamayama-kun,” Hinata scolds, roused from his sulk by the profanity. “Say poop instead… oh fuck,” he finishes, as he and Yachi both turn to see what his boyfriend is looking at.

Hinata’s potion, apparently feeling left out, seems to have outgrown the powers of inanimate existence. As it towers out of the cauldron, bubbling ominously, it looks vaguely similar to what Yachi imagines her insides to be after a plate of measles-cure-on-toast.

“Yacchan,” Kageyama says carefully, “get down.”

As Yachi drops to the floor, the potion - apparently incensed by Kageyama’s neutral tone, or perhaps his dirty mouth, maybe it sides with Hinata on that one – begins its attack. Goop splatters everywhere, painting the workshop in fifty shades of green; Hinata and Kageyama dive for mops, Yachi scrambling behind a bench. Yelling war cries, the two idiots charge into the fray.

Yachi smiles.

 _My gay crisis,_ she decides as she takes up a mop and prepares to do battle, _will have to wait._

***

“Yachi,” Hinata yells from the window, “if you don’t ring the damn doorbell in the next five seconds, I am marching over there and ringing it myself.”

After a distant scuffle and some yelling that sounds a lot like ‘shut up, dumbass,’ he sticks his head out the window again. “I’ll do it, I’m warning you!’

Yachi blanches as bystanders stare, cheeks flushing fire-alarm red. She steels herself up. If Hinata has to bail her out of one more sticky situation, she knows she’ll never hear the end of it, and despite the fact that she has successfully dithered in front of the shelter door for half an hour straight, Yachi still has dignity. She thinks. Or maybe she doesn’t any more. That was lost after Flirting Attempt #3, when an innocent-enough date to a fairground had ended up in the portable toilets, as Yachi had tried to fend off a bout of ride-induced nausea.

She’d failed. It wasn’t pretty.

To avoid thinking of any more past (or current) embarrassments, Yachi shakes her head and straight-up _punches_ the doorbell. 

(A passerby throws her a weird look. She plays it off with a smile and a wave.)

 _I’m doing this,_ she thinks to herself as she jitters on the doorstep. _It’ll be fine. I’m going to give her the potion, we’ll maybe have a cup of tea and jam on toast, and then I’ll go. My social anxiety will not make an appearance. It’s all going to be ok._

She hears an almighty crash resounding from inside the shelter, and considers making a run for it while she can. 

_It’s not going to be fine. It’s not, no it’s not, no it’s not._

In theory, aside from her tendency to trip over her own words, Yachi has no reason to worry. When you’re standing on your crush’s doorstep holding two jam jars with questionable contents, having been assaulted by a dragon and an unruly potion the day before, and you’re the owner of an incredibly nervous disposition, however? It’s understandable if your nerves are a little bit frazzled.

Yachi winces as another crash and some incensed, unintelligible yelling filters through the door. Whatever’s going on in there, she’s not entirely sure she wants to be a part of it.

 _The dragon needs this salve,_ she reminds herself. _This is not a date. You’re delivering products to a client, that’s all. A very pretty client. And then you’re going to go._

The minutes tick by, and with each one, Yachi becomes more nervous. Despite all her worries, she really does want to see Kiyoko; she spent a long time fighting that potion and an even longer time afterwards making jam, and she’s not going to let her efforts slide. _If_ Kiyoko comes to the door in the next twenty seconds.

Fifteen…

Ten…

Five…

Two…

Two and a half…

 _Maybe she’s not in,_ she thinks desperately. _I’ll try again later._

And just as she turns to leave, the door flies open with an incredible bang – scaring the living daylights out of Yachi and almost making her drop the jam-jars – and she doesn’t have time to think before Shimizu Kiyoko has her by the arm and is dragging her bodily inside the shelter.

“What – what the heck is going on – wha…?” she says eloquently as she passes multiple enclosures, all filled to the brim with magical creatures. Kiyoko doesn’t pause for a second, steering her round the corner and into a tiny room where Tanaka and Noya are waiting. Neither of them acknowledge her abrupt arrival for more than a millisecond, for good reason, as Yachi soon discovers. 

In the center of the room lies the dragon, opalescent eyes aglow, surrounded by a nest of broken eggshells.

At Yachi’s sharp intake of breath, Kiyoko turns to her and nods. Her face is alight with wonder.

“The dragon eggs are hatching,” she says breathlessly. “And you’re just in time to see them.”


	3. Chapter 3

Yachi brandishes the bottle at the baby dragon. It fixes her with a beady eye and promptly turns away.

“Oh, come on,” she mutters, glaring after it, as it spreads lopsided wings and stumbles away. A fond smile spreads over her face regardless. “At least _try_ to pretend that you like me.”

Kiyoko laughs from a couple of feet away, where she’s kneeling with another tiny dragonling in her lap. Firmly attached to the teat of the bottle, it suckles its liquid dinner with gusto, rivulets of formula running from its cheeks. “It’s all very well for _you_ to laugh,” Yachi grumbles, watching her dragonling run face-first into the water bowl. She rescues it from certain drenching and it squeals in protest. “They all love you.” She tickles its tiny tummy, grinning as it squeals. “Every single one of them.”

“Hey, be careful,” Kiyoko warns. “We do have to release them into the wild, you know. They can’t be too dependent on human care.” Her dragonling snaps at her fingers and she smiles fondly. “Though I will admit they’re kinda cute.”

Various screeching noises echo from a corner of the room. The grin slides straight off Kiyoko’s face.

“Love? I’m not too sure about that.” Kiyoko gestures to the mother dragon, who sits sulking from the safety of a cardboard box, gemstone eyes. “I don’t think she’s particularly pleased with any of us.”

“Yeah, well, sucks to be her. She’s the one who abandoned her babies in the first place.” Yachi sends the mother dragon an equally evil glare. “Thank the lord she’s only in here until her wing heals. I don’t want to deal with that attitude any longer than necessary.”

“That’s harsh, Yacchan,” Tanaka smirks, entering the room with two more dragonlings squirming in his hands. As always, Nishinoya is by his side. “How would you feel if you were stuck in a room with all these strangers, when where you wanted to be was outside eating peaches and having the time of your life?”

“I’m pretty sure she feels like that right now,” Kiyoko murmurs, and all three of her companions snort. Tanaka slaps a hand to his chest in mock offence, despite obviously sharing Yachi’s thoughts. _(Beautiful, caring AND witty. Lord help me.)_

The two girls share a mirthful glance. Kiyoko making sarcastic comments under her breath is evidently not a new occurrence: after a second or two of fake sniffs, Tanaka shrugs it off in favour of handing a dragonling to Noya. Grabbing a formula bottle, the shorter boy begins his task, snarling right back at the dragon as it attempts to spill the milk. 

Yachi casts her eyes about the messy shelter backroom and sighs. Despite its well-meaning nature and her laughter, she can’t deny that Kiyoko’s comment stings. She’s only been coming to the shelter for a couple of days, but she’s never fit in so well anywhere before: in fact, caring for the dragonlings has almost made her consider giving up jam-making altogether. 

_For the dragons,_ she thinks, desperately trying to retain her dignity. _Not just to be with Kiyoko-san. Definitely, definitely for the dragons._

(Kiyoko bares her teeth at her dragonling, gorgeous eyes a-twinkle.)

_Oh, who am I kidding. I’m here for Kiyoko. Baby dragons are just a bonus._

But however obstinate Yachi can be, she knows that’s not the whole story. Hinata and Kageyama may tease her for being smitten (and ok, maybe she is a _little)_ but for Yachi, a sense of belonging is hard to come by. This tiny room – however small and stuffed with dragons – is full of it.

Noticing the lull in conversation, Kiyoko seems to sense her insecurity: after a moment of silence, she turns to her companion. Her smiling face is something Yachi wants to burn into the backs of her eyelids, just so she can never forget what it looks like.

 _Dammit Yachi, you’ve known her, what – three days? You are hopeless. Get a grip._   
“I’m kidding, Hitoka-chan,” Kiyoko says softly. “You’re not a stranger. You’re welcome here whenever you wish. In fact, I could go as far to say that you’re one of us now.”

_Never mind getting a grip, running round in circles screaming sounds fantastic right now._

Past Yachi would’ve made a clever quip about the logo on her t-shirt (a spare shelter one she borrowed after a dragonling vomited all over the previous one) that proclaims her one of the team, but Present Yachi’s heart is doing that stupid thing when all her muscles contract at once and she’s too shocked to do anything but squeak. After regaining movement, she blushes and looks down at her lap. 

The dragonling has returned, and is currently trying its best to clamber up the folded pleats of her skirt. She takes it in her arms. “Thank you, Kiyoko-san,” she murmurs as she fondles its tiny ears. “That means a lot to me.”

(She hears a sniff in the background, which soon turns into a cacophony of wailing. Apparently the sentimental moment had been too much for Tanaka to bear. Yachi can’t really blame him: after this exchange, she feels just about ready to burst into tears herself, or perhaps vomit rainbows on the floor.)

(Kiyoko, bless her soul, just looks confused.) 

She stands a couple minutes of Noya patting Tanaka’s back, a similar pained expression contorting his face, then raises an eyebrow at the minute trail of destruction now leading away from the room. It snakes towards one very distinctive jar, left open on the floor after the boys had raided it earlier that morning. Shouts of ‘this is amazing, Yacchan,’ and ‘for the love of god, bring more tomorrow,’ still echo in their ears.

‘Your dragonlings have escaped,’ Kiyoko says serenely, ‘and they’re headed for Yachi’s jam jars.’

‘Shit,’ is the only response she gets to that statement, and then the rest of the morning is spent mopping the floors, pulling care manuals off shelves and frantically researching if sugar overdose can upset a dragon’s stomach.

(It can.)

(Despite the sense of belonging settling in her bones, despite the smile etched onto her face, Yachi decides that a vomiting dragon is something she _never_ wants to see again.) 

***

“Thanks for everything, Kiyoko-san,” Yachi says, her sentence punctuated by yawns. She’s swaying on the doorstep, every ounce of energy sapped by running after dragonlings and (regrettably) mopping up an eternity of vomit pools. Stars are beginning to stretch across the sky, but sunset colours still slash the clouds, painting a scene of such grandeur it’s like it popped straight out of Yachi’s paintings. Beautiful. Yachi would comment on the intimacy of the moment, but exhaustion has zapped every ounce of self-control from her veins; if she starts harping on about romance, she can’t quite trust herself to stop.

“No: thank _you,_ Hitoka-chan,” Kiyoko replies softly. “It’s a pleasure to have you here as always. I can’t tell you how much your volunteering means to us – we’re always so busy, and another set of hands on deck means the world, especially with the dragon babies here…” she trips over her tongue, fatigue obviously also overcoming her brain, and she substitutes words for a gentle smile.  
It’s sweet, but it doesn’t stop Yachi from resenting the formality of the situation. She craves assurance, the knowledge that she’s not just another volunteer, that she means something more to Kiyoko, unlikely as it may be; moving past the crush, she wants to mean something to Tanaka and Noya, too. Apparently three days _is_ enough time to form lasting emotional attachments.

(She makes a mental note to look that up when she gets home)

If she weren’t so hopelessly sleepy, maybe she’d address the squeezing in her chest, but Kiyoko is still functional, voice lilting over the calls of the dragons in the shelter. Yachi lets her do the talking, expending every ounce of concentration on attuning her ears to it. _Gay crisis can wait,_ she thinks sleepily, enjoying the sunlight on Kiyoko’s hair. 

“… this might seem a little forward of me,” Kiyoko’s saying, “but I was wondering if you’d like to meet up sometime, outside the shelter? Maybe grab some potion-juice in town?”

Wait.

_What._

Kiyoko’s still talking, rambling with a flush beginning to drip down her cheeks. Yachi has no idea what she’s saying. Her insides are too busy combusting for her to even have a clue.

(The conversation goes something like this.)

“It doesn’t have to be a thing if you don’t want it to-“ Yachi can’t hear her over the sound of her heartbeat. “I just thought it would be nice to catch up when there aren’t vomiting dragonlings everywhere, you know -“ she’s pretty sure this is where she dies, right here on this doorstep in the middle of a goddamn sunset. “It’s nothing, forget I mentioned it, I just thought it would be nice -”

“Yes,” Yachi breathes, and Kiyoko stops in shock, and then they’re laughing and falling and they’re apologising in each other’s arms, one big gay mess on a dragon shelter doorstep.

 _(It’s platonic, of course,_ Yachi reminds herself, and then realises that her head is resting on Kiyoko’s chest. Forget the queen of compromising situations. Yachi is the _goddess_ of them.)

“Just pick a date – uh, day,” she says, disentangling herself and managing to retain just bit of her dignity. Thankfully, Kiyoko’s cheeks are just as red as hers. “I’ll clear my schedule. Not that my schedule really has anything on it – just hanging out with my partner MY WORK PARTNER he’s gay by the way, as am I, don’t know why you would need to know that, oh god I’m going to shut up now.” 

(Kiyoko’s bemused expression is simultaneously the best and worst thing to ever happen to her.)

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she nearly shouts, just now becoming aware of Tanaka and Noyas’ presence in the doorway. Realising their impending jealousy at what she was just asked to do, she turns to give a cocky salute and recoils immediately after. Their faces are hilarious. “Have fun with the dragon vomit!” 

And then, in all her undignified, not-quite-five-foot glory, Yachi Hitoka flees the scene.

(Though as she’s leaving, she hears Tanaka whining and Nishinoya teasing, and allows herself to think of what might happen if that invitation wasn’t strictly platonic – and, just maybe, what might come after it.)

(Needless to say, it’s a very happy thought indeed.)

***

Four days ago, when Yachi Hitoka had been assaulted by a dragon and rescued by a beautiful dame-in-a-dragon-shelter-t-shirt, she would never have predicted said dame turning on her doorstep to beg for assistance.

Then again, Yachi’s life predictions never quite seem to go to plan.

“I know I said ‘pick a day,’” Yachi says, blinking groggily in the porchlight, “but I was assuming that meant the middle of the night was not an option.”

(She briefly recognises the mortifying consequences of having forgotten to engage a mouth filter, then files it away for another time.)

Yeah, she might be head-over-heels for the panicking woman on her doorstep. But even that, in Yachi’s eyes, does not warrant waking up at two minutes past twelve in the morning to a barrage of violent knocking. Neither does it justify a very disgruntled Hinata, yelling at her to ‘get her ass out of bed and answer the door goddamn it’, stomping down the stairs behind her with a temper as red as his hair.

The very same Hinata who is currently hanging over her shoulder, wiping sleep out of his eyes and gawping shamelessly at Kiyoko’s beauty.

“Is this your dragon lady?” he wonders aloud. “Because if so, Yachi, hot damn. She’s a keeper.”

“Would you shut up?” Yachi hisses, then turns to face her companion.

Kiyoko, for want of a better word, looks terrible. Her hair is a wreck, sticking up in fifty different directions, and it looks like she’s going to wring her hands right off if Yachi doesn’t do something to stop her soon – which she does, grasping calloused fingers tight in her fists. However gratifying this is for Yachi, it seemingly does nothing to calm Kiyoko’s nerves. She’s practically vibrating with some kind of fear, which – while totally out of character for her usually collected self – is terrifying and somewhat violent: if anything, concerning for Yachi’s health.

“What is it, Kiyoko-san?” Yachi asks, slurring her words together in a yawn. Midnight has never been a time of perfect human functioning, and being shaken around on her doorstep by her crush was never really going to help matters.

“The dragonlings escaped” comes the answer, and suddenly Yachi is very much awake again.

 _“What,”_ she says in horror, and follows it up with an incredibly panicked _“how?”_ From her lack of an answer, Kiyoko, is in no fit state to be interrogated, so Yachi leads her inside the porch and turns to Hinata. “Get her a blanket and a glass of piperis potion. There should be some on the shelf through there. _Hurry!_ How she was dumb enough to come out without a jacket on I’ll never know.” _Whoops, there goes my mouth again._ Kiyoko, thankfully, seems to be taking Yachi’s discomposure in her stride: either that or she’s too distracted by the _impending doom of the planet_ (or at least the dragon shelter.)

“What’s going on?” Kageyama pokes his head out of the living room, half his hair sticking out like a satellite and giving poor Yachi the fright of her life.

For a moment, all sense of priority go out the window. She cocks her head in utter confusion. "What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night. Why aren’t you back home?”

At the embarrassment leaking over Kageyama’s face, Yachi decides that she _really_ does not want to know.  
“Never mind. Don’t tell me. We have bigger problems than your sex life.” 

Judging by Kageyama’s splutters and Kiyoko’s quizzical stare, Yachi did in fact say that out loud. She curses her lack of a filter and shoves it from her mind. 

“Hitoka-chan… you sure have a dirty mouth, don’t you?” Kiyoko says, the beginnings of a smirk etching itself on her face.

To keep herself from choking, Yachi grabs a jacket from the coat cupboard and shoves it into Kiyoko’s chest. “Dragonlings! Escaped!” she shouts, pointing out the door. “We gotta go! We gotta catch them all!”

Kiyoko nods sagely – perhaps acknowledging the reference, perhaps too internally panicked to care - and the volunteer, the jam-maker and the policeman burst out on their mission, jackets rumpled, imbued by pure heroism and the goodness of mankind in their hearts.

Hinata skids to the door with his arms full of blankets, watching the three idiots head off into the night. 

He sighs.

“Well, I suppose the pyjamas complete the look.”

***

“You could have waited,” Hinata pouts sulkily as he tugs on Kageyama’s arm. “I’d found blankets for all of you. You _left_ me, Kageyama. There are _lives_ at stake.”

“Yeah, and one of them will be yours if you don’t shut up soon, dumbass,” Kageyama says, effectively summarising Yachi’s internal monologue. He snuggles tighter into his coat, face frozen in his usual grumpy position. “We’re just waiting on some others to arrive, then we’re going to get started with the hunting. And then,” he says wistfully, stifling a yawn. “we can get back to bed. These dragonlings better not be good at hiding.” 

“I’m freezing. When will the others get here?” Hinata whines, just as the sound of the ruckus reaches them.

Tanaka and Noya sprint into the garden, a whole troop of villagers in tow. Yachi sighs. “That would be now, apparently.”

Spread out in a circle, there’s around fifteen people in total, including Hinata, Kageyama and the people from the shelter. Both Yachi and Kiyoko are jittering in front of the crowd – social ineptness is apparently another thing they seem to have in common – so Tanaka steps forward. 

“Thank you for joining us tonight,” he says smoothly, gesturing around the circle like he’s giving a life-changing speech. (Who knows? To him it may well be.) “As you know, we have five dragonlings under our care at the shelter. And thanks to _someone_ –“ he glares at Nishinoya, who guiltily avoids his gaze – “not checking the windows properly, they seem to have escaped. So that’s why we’re here.” He spreads his hands pleadingly. “To round them all up. Please help us. It’s a cold night tonight, and their adult scales haven’t quite come in, so there’s a high chance of hypothermia and believe me that is _not_ something we want to have on our hands. We’ll be sweeping the area from the shelter to the far side of the orchard: they’re only little, so they can’t have gone far. We should be done within the hour. Any questions?”

 _Damn,_ Yachi thinks groggily. _Who could’ve thought Tanaka-san could be so serious?_

A giant of a man – _Ashikaga? Azumane?_ One of Yachi’s customers anyhow – timidly raises his hand. As Noya engages him in an animated conversation about the difference between wild and bottle-raised species (almost as if Noya knows the guy… a query for another time) she replays Tanaka’s speech in her head and tries to refrain from snorting.

_So it wasn’t the doors after all: it was the windows. And one very disorganized Noya-senpai. I can’t believe I’m so surprised._

Her reverie is interrupted by Tanaka, who takes it upon himself to break up the impending debate. At some point during the briefing, Kiyoko has begun to lean on Yachi’s arm, and as she becomes aware of this she lets out an embarrassing squeak. Thankfully, it’s lost in the cool night air.

“We have to get moving, but first of all let’s divvy us up into groups. We should go in twos, so if anyone walks into a tree – don’t think I’m forgetting last time, Noya – they’ll have someone with them to call for help. So first of all –“ he plants a thumb in his chest, smile plastered across his face – “I’ll be going with our brightest and most beautiful: Kiyoko-san.”

“Excuse you,” Noya says, looking mortally offended. _“I’ll_ be going with Kiyoko-san." 

(This bickering continues until Kiyoko says “I’m going with Hitoka-chan, actually,” which shuts them up long enough to prevent Yachi hyperventilating and split the rest of the group into pairs. By this time, they’ve both recovered from the rejection and have ceased wiping fake tears from anguished faces.)

“I guess it’s just you and me, ol’ buddy,” Tanaka says to Noya, pointedly ignoring any longing glances in the direction of a certain Mr Azumane-san himself.

 _(Interesting,_ Yachi thinks: _very interesting.)_

Kiyoko claps her hands together unexpectedly, drawing the group’s attention to her. All traces of earlier jitters have vanished in the heat of the moment: if she quavers under the spotlight, she doesn’t show it. “Now that we’re in our groups, we need to get started. These dragons won’t find themselves. If you all know what you’re looking for, let’s go.” Her expression is one of absolute determination. “We’ll meet back here in half an hour. Good luck!”

She grabs Yachi by the wrist – if she can feel a hammering heartbeat, it goes unmentioned – and they’re off into the orchard, the place where this whole disaster began, to spend a whole night bumping into peach trees and crawling through grass, laughing and looking for dragonlings with the stars wheeling over their heads.

It’s safe to say that Yachi could never have predicted this.

 _But hey,_ Yachi decides as Kiyoko manages to walk into yet another step stool, _if this is anything to go on, unpredictable is the best we’re going to get._


	4. Chapter 4

“I did not sign up for this,” Kiyoko yells as she swats at the dragon with a broom.

_Ah, parallels,_ thinks Yachi, though she keeps this particular thought to herself.

It is four am. The ground is swaying under Yachi’s feet. What was initially predicted to be a simple dragon-catching mission has turned into a night-long epic with a distinct lack of anything resembling common sense, leaving a cranky array of villagers and some very frazzled volunteers to trample the orchard at an abysmal time of night. Yachi feels worryingly ready to climb into the sun. 

_(If_ the sun ever rises. If this ordeal _ever_ decides to end.)

“I will summon the wrath of Satan himself and unleash it upon you, puny worm, if you don’t surrender to me _right this instant.”_

(The only good thing about this disaster is that Yachi gets to see how Kiyoko acts when she is A: high on caffeine and B: completely uncaring about any form of reputation whatsoever. This becomes more amusing by the second.)

“Get down here you reptilian _fuck,”_ Kiyoko appears to be yelling, brandishing a broom with the expertise of an ancient samurai. If Yachi’s eyes would actually focus, she’s sure it would make a hilariously ridiculous photograph – however, she can’t quite get them to cooperate, and Kiyoko continues to shriek. 

“I have been searching for your siblings for upwards of four hours now. I truly would not give a damn if you fell face-first out of this tree and smashed your skull open on the ground. But I have to, because I run a dragon shelter. So please can you come down. _Please._ I’m begging you. All I want to do is sleep.”

The dragon fixes her with a beady eye and scrambles to a higher branch.

“What the _fuck,”_ Kiyoko screeches, then slumps at the foot of the peach tree and sobs.

In another universe, Yachi would rush to her side and comfort her; perhaps attempt to carry her back to the shelter and lay her down to rest. But in this universe, her legs won’t move enough to do so. Unsurprisingly, a night spent crawling through shrubbery, attempting to recapture four agile dragonlings and searching fruitlessly for the fifth one has left her exhausted and incapable of speech. She wonders briefly if she can reprogram herself to help.

_(Yacchan.exe has stopped working. Please reboot file.)_

When she glances back over, Kiyoko appears to have stopped crying, but has also seemed to have expired both physically and mentally. Always the gentleman, Tanaka comes to the rescue. He snatches up the broom and is preparing to make war when the tall villager – _Asahi,_ as Yachi has since learned, along with the fact that he is indeed half giant – comes over and taps him on the shoulder.

“Would it not be easier to just leave it ‘til morning? Then we could, you know, actually see the dragon, which might help matters along a bit. Just a suggestion.” Asahi looks genuinely petrified, as if this meek suggestion will somehow invoke Kiyoko’s wrath. Which, incidentally, is terrifying. Yachi doubts that Kiyoko will ever be known as a ‘quiet, selfless girl’ again – screaming dragonlord from the pits of hell seems more apt. 

“Nah, man, we gotta catch it now. We know where it is, and I don’t want to go through the rigmarole of cornering it again.” Noya’s voice is two tones quieter than usual, as if even _his_ energy reserves have been impacted. Even the thought of that is scary, especially for Yachi, whose busy shelter nights have been forever filled with his incessant chatter. 

Noya never stops bouncing. _Ever._

(This dragon apparently sees fit to change that.)

Noya sighs. “We just gotta figure out a way to get our hands on it. Too bad the dragon didn’t choose an easy tree to climb.”  
There are a couple of moments of silence, punctuated only by the rustling of foliage above. A lightbulb goes off in Yachi’s brain.

She turns to Tanaka. “Lift me.”

He fixes her with a quizzical stare. “What?”

“Lift me up and put me on your shoulders. Or Asahi’s. Then maybe I’ll be able to reach this dragon and the whole ordeal will be over.” She gestures at the tree. “We have to try it. The dragon’s not too far up the trunk, right? I should be able to grab it if I stretch up on my tiptoes. You’ll have to keep me really secure.”

“Yacchan. I am not lifting you. If it goes wrong you’ll snap in two. Yacchan, you are made of _air.”_

“And a whole lot more courage than you two, apparently,” she says tiredly, for once appreciating her lack of a filter. Tanaka gapes. “I’m tired. I want to go home. If you don’t lift me up so I can catch this goddamn dragon once and for all, I am going to _die.”_

As if on cue, the dragon scuttles further up the branches, positioning itself well out of Yachi’s reach. It takes everything she has not to throw herself on the ground and scream.

“It’s fine. Stop yelling, Hitoka-chan.” Kiyoko rises from her slump, an ounce or two of dignity restored. 

Yachi shuts her mouth. Apparently her self-restraint techniques weren’t strong enough after all. 

Kiyoko continues to talk, a few ounces of quiet dignity restored. “We can do this. We’ll just need three people instead of two. You can support that kind of weight, right?” Asahi nods, looking apprehensive. “I’ll sit on your shoulders. Then maybe Hitoka-chan can stand on mine.”

Although it’s not the safest of plans, no complaints are made. After capturing four energetic baby dragons, the majority of the villagers are completely wiped out: they watch the proceedings with heavy-lidded eyes, scattered around on the grass. 

(Yachi envies them slightly, but wishes they would stop eating her peaches.)

“It’s now or never, I suppose,” she says wearily, glancing around the meagre search party. The moon hangs low in the sky, threatening both her morale and her desiccated sleep schedule. “Anything to get this goddamn dragon down.”

“Alright then,” Kiyoko replies, extending a hand. “Let’s go.”

***

Five minutes later, Yachi is regretting every decision she’s ever made.

“I know it’s hard, Hitoka-chan,” Kiyoko says in a muffled voice, “but could you possibly not stick your knees in my chest?”

“I’m sorry! It’s rather difficult!” Yachi squeaks, and proceeds to nearly fall off Asahi’s shoulders.

The human tower is swaying precariously; all possible conclusions point straight to collapse. Yachi is learning the hard way that standing on someone’s shoulders – after climbing yet another person to get in that position – is a lot less easy than it looks. She braces herself against the tree trunk, knees shaking. 

“Guys, I’m not sure I can do this!”

Tanaka waves his arms from the ground. “You have to! You’re the universe’s only hope!”

“If you fall, I’ll catch you,” Noya yells, magnificently failing to make Yachi feel better.

She wavers – and shrieks gibberish at the top of her lungs. “I’m falling! I’m falling - ohmygodohmygodohmygod – Kiyoko I can’t do this, I’m too young to die, I’m going to break my arms and legs I’m faLLING -”

“No you’re not, Hitoka-chan,” Kiyoko says through gritted teeth, injecting every word with forced calmness. “You’ve got your arms around the tree. You’ll be fine.”

_Breathe, Hitoka, breathe. You are not going to fall or die. Not here, anyway. Not now. Look down – the ground isn’t that far away…_

_Ok,_ she shrieks internally as she sways on Kiyoko’s shoulders, _that was a_ really _bad idea._

“Can you reach the dragon?” Tanaka yells, shocking her out of her panic. Willing to do anything to distract her from the looming forest floor, she sticks her head into the foliage.

It takes a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness – not to mention the leaves poking at her face – but a pair of glinting opals eventually meet her gaze. A tiny hissing noise snakes through the air. The dragonling is finally within arm’s reach. 

She stretches out for it – _carefully, carefully_ – and it backs away from her hand; she’d forgotten how truly tiny it was. With one final, agonising stretch she manages to grab its miniscule frame.

“I’ve got it!” she crows, just as the shouting reaches her ears.

“Grab onto the tree, Yacchan! Step onto it! Quickly!”

“Why?” she yells, and leaps for it just as Kiyoko’s shoulders vanish from beneath her feet. 

For a moment, she’s content to just breathe. Then she sees the puddle of Asahi-and-Kiyoko on the ground.

“What the _hell,”_ she shrieks, and damn near loses her footing on the spindly peach-tree branch.

(A defibrillator still sound good right now.)

_Great. Now it’s not only the dragon,_ she thinks bitterly. 

Contrary to all hopes and expectations, Yachi Hitoka is now well and truly up a tree.

“Have you got the dragonling,” Tanaka yells over the sound of her thundering heartbeat, and it’s only then that the reality of the situation hits her.

“Yes I have the goddamn dragonling,” she shouts from between the branches, her every inch of muscle holding on for dear life. “Because that’s the priority here. Not your favourite tiny volunteer, who you have miraculously managed to install up a tree. Congratulations boys, you’ve really done it this time.” 

“Just drop it down to us, silly,” Kiyoko answers, and Yachi grumbles as she parachutes the dragonling to safety.

A cheer goes up around the garden, a last-ditch attempt at enthusiasm at god-knows-what-o’ clock in the mornings. Villagers begin to peel away from the gathering, heading home to a cup of tea, perhaps toast with one of Yachi’s jams and a well-earned nap. Yachi considers throwing peaches at their heads.

“Excuse me, guys,” she hollers, “but I am _still_ up a tree,”

“Jump for it,” Asahi says with his arms outstretched, and without even thinking about it – other than Past Yachi having a fit in the back of her mind – she does.

(Searching for dragonlings all night does tend to erase your brain.) 

With any inkling of common sense, she would see that even Asahi wouldn’t be able to withstand her weight from such a drop. She would stop volunteering at the shelter, after teaching Noya exactly how to lock a window properly. And then she would make jam for the rest of her life, listen to Hinata battling potions gone awry, and never ever deal with a dragonling again.

(Then again, Yachi thinks as Kiyoko pulls her up from the ground into the biggest hug she’s ever had and exhaustion floods her veins, _common sense has never been my forte.)_

***

“Well, one good thing came out of that ordeal at least,” Tanaka yawns, stifling his morning breath with the back of his hand. Tired eyes flicker around the backroom. “None of the babies got hypothermia. That means we can release them within the week, if all goes well with their routine check-ups.”

Yachi opens one eye from where she’s lying on the shelter couch and closes it again in absolute disgust. 

“You’re kidding,” she says flatly. “We go to all that trouble of finding them and you’re saying that we’ll release them _within the week._ Why not just do it now. Or later. Why not have done it five hours ago when you _noticed_ the dragons were missing, and instead of dragging us all out on some murder mystery detective hunt, said ‘oh well, they’ll probably survive’ and be done with it?”

“I’m pretty sure if we’d done that, you’d have beheaded us, Hitoka-chan,” Kiyoko says sagely as she nibbles on a slice of toast. “Like it or not, the dragonlings are our responsibility.”

“Don’t think I’m forgetting about your yelling episode earlier, Kiyoko-san,” Yachi grumbles, prompting an outburst of laughter around the shelter table. Red-faced, Kiyoko sticks out her tongue, and Yachi revels in the fact that she’s no longer the only one without composure. 

“So when do you think you’ll release them?” Hinata asks, head nodding over his umpteenth mug of coffee. He’s curled up in Kageyama’s lap, hoping beyond hope that the hot drink will blow his head off enough to make selling potions a feasible task.

(“It is now… four twenty-nine am. I have to open the shop in an hour and thirty-one minutes. Holy crapballs,” he’d said while pouring Red Minotaur into the first of many coffee cups. “Down the hatch it is.”)

(“Over my dead body,” Kageyama had replied, and Hinata had drunk it anyway.) 

Nishinoya smiles, face smushed into Asahi’s shoulder. (Yachi makes a mental note to ask him about that later.) “Their wings should develop fully by this time next week. Then we can set them off into the woodland. Kiyoko can do a little good-luck ceremony. It’ll be a great send-off! They may be troublemakers, but I have to admit –“ he grins – “I’m going to miss these guys.”

A crash echoes from the dragonling backroom, and the smile slides straight off his face. He sighs. “Forget I said that.”

“A good-luck ceremony?” Yachi asks as the three shelter workers head over to the room to face whatever dragon disaster has occurred now. 

Kiyoko looks back with twinkling eyes. “Just a little goodbye kind of thing. Nothing much, just some cakes and a charm. I like to think it helps them survive in the wild.” Another crash echoes from the room and she winces. 

Yachi rolls her eyes. “I suppose they need all the help they can get.”

“Sounds like it. You’d best get back to the shop, or maybe take a nap. If it’s not too much bother, we’ll probably see you for the vaccinations later on. And you might need to cover Hinata’s shift too: the coffee doesn’t seem to be doing him much good. See you later!”

With that, she’s gone, and Yachi’s left to drag a slightly-convulsing Hinata home and flip the sign on the shop door. Despite the fact her eyelids are dragging her down with them and she’s finding it hard to hold conversation, Yachi feels the cool breeze on her face and decides, however tempting it may be, not to climb into the sun. 

She makes her way over the bookcase and looks up ‘good luck recipes’. She skims past the ‘peach jam’ page without a backward glance.

It takes a while, and several awkward conversations with customers – goddamn _Yukie_ shows up again, prompting a silent laughing fit from Hinata and failed attempts to avoid interaction – but she finally finds it: the perfect recipe. The jam that sums up her entire experience with Kiyoko so far. The jam she hopes will continue to do so.

Sweet. Different. Tangy, with just that little bit of a kick – supplied by trouble-making dragons and some flirting on the side.

Yachi smiles and grabs her pestle. _Dragonfruit jelly, here I come._

***

“Here we go, boys,” Kiyoko says solemnly. “Light ‘em up.”

(It’s safe to say that when Yachi had envisioned a ‘good luck ceremony’, she hadn’t factored fireworks into the equation. Or the aforementioned ceremony taking place in her lovingly cultivated orchard. Or the fact that she’d have to hold a squirming dragonling for a grand total of ten consecutive minutes, while Asahi – now Nishinoya’s boyfriend, a result of endless interrogation over the past week and a half – went round snapping pictures with her camera and crying.)

_(But hey, she thinks cheerfully, c’est la vie.)_

They’re standing in a row in the orchard, Tanaka, Noya, Kageyama, Hinata and Yachi with flapping dragonlings clutched in their fingers. Kiyoko herself has the mother dragon, snapping and snarling, wings are kicking up a storm. Yachi finds it hard to believe how quickly they’ve grown – though she can believe the mess of the shelter after their attempts to find their wings, so maybe it is comprehensible – but most of all, she can’t believe they’re finally letting the dragonlings go. After two weeks of dragon-duty, 6-hour shifts, 24-hour watch, they’ll be gone.

Free. Flying wild in the orchard like the magnificent creatures they are, commandeering the skies and raiding her peach trees for dinner.

(She doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.)

Most of the group, no matter how well they’re hiding it, have gone for the second option. Tanaka and Noya have been in tears since walking into the shelter this morning, clinging to each other and making such a scene that Kiyoko threatened to have them kicked out, or at the very least mopping the bathrooms. On the contrary, the dragonlings seem less than concerned, focused more on escaping their imprisoners’ hands: their eyes are bright as shimmering opals, scales shining with the light of a thousand suns. 

“Three… two… one… lift-off!”

Yachi opens her hands and the dragonling spirals into the sky, urged on by cheers and the crackling of fireworks. The group of volunteers gaze up in delight as bright colours split the sky: shades of happiness dancing in the breeze. Dragon calls echo through the orchard. 

Yachi looks down to see tears staining every person’s cheeks, and isn’t surprised to find them on her own.

“I know they were assholes,” Hinata sobs into Kageyama’s chest, “but they were cute assholes.”

Kageyama ruffles his partner’s fiery ginger hair. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Cute assholes indeed.”

They stand still a while longer, watching as the dragonlings flap off into the distance. Some gargantuan sniffs are coming from Asahi’s direction, but nobody mentions it: they’re too busy mopping up their own. At some point, Yachi looks over at Kiyoko to find her absolutely starstruck – held in thrall by the sky – and she doesn’t know how to deal with such beauty, how to deal with so much happiness the dragonlings have brought her.

So, naturally, she does it awkwardly.

“I made jam,” she says, and everyone bursts into laughter through their tears.

“I love you, Yacchan,” Tanaka weeps, holding out his hands for the jar. “I don’t know if I’ve ever told you. But I love you from the bottom of my heart.”

“I’m afraid that’s my job,” Kiyoko says softly as she sweeps the jar from Yachi’s hands – is it Yachi’s imagination but is that a blush on her cheeks, _was that flirting was that flirting oh my god_ – and she picks up the label and reads it with a smile.

_**Dragonfruit Jelly**  
Good health and good luck._

“Oh, Hitoka-chan,” Kiyoko says, her voice heavy with tears and big smiles and good things, and she kisses Yachi on the cheek and just _grins._

(World collide.)

(Brains implode.)

(Nishinoya catches sight of the look on Yachi’s face and mouths _‘same’._ Yachi mouths _‘you have a boyfriend’_ back.)

Yachi’s just about ready to turn round and smash her face into Kiyoko’s, just kiss her right up into the sky with no cares as to who might be watching, when Hinata shoves a plate into her hands. Brought out of her reverie, she’s greeted with the sight and smell of the best piece of toast she’s ever seen. Spread lightly with a thin layer of her jam.

Her thoughts and questions – “you already opened my jelly?” – are cut short by Hinata’s wink. “Just give it to her,” he whispers. “She’ll be blown away.”

It takes only two seconds of Kiyoko’s interesting facial expressions for Yachi to realise that no, Hinata did not, in fact, open the jelly. Kiyoko is not eating dragonfruit on toast. Instead, she is going through the exact same phenomenon as Hinata, and Yukie, and last of all Yachi have been through many times – and suffering through every bite, just to make her happy.

_(I told you that you were soulmates,_ internal Yachi reasons. _I told you so.)_

“Gout cure?” external Yachi asks resignedly. Kiyoko, bless her soul, just nods. 

“Excuse me a minute,” Yachi says heavily, and stalks off to do some beheading.

***

Later on, when Yachi has successfully disposed of Hinata and apologised to Kiyoko a hundred million times, they laugh about it. Hands entwined, heads close together, enthralled in the sunset that seeps through every pore. Curled up together on a step stool, watching the sky paint the town; dying their lips red with lucky fruit jam and listening to dragon cries overhead.

When Kiyoko turns to Yachi tonight, her breath doesn’t catch in her throat. She has no use for a defibrillator. She feels no need to throw herself into the sun. 

Perhaps it’s a testament to how far they’ve come together – from the flustered strangers rescuing a dragon together to this, whatever this is – but Yachi hasn’t the words to describe it, and for that she’s rather glad. A sense of belonging has always been hard to come by: it only makes sense that it’s hard to dictate, too.

Kiyoko smiles and pulls her closer, and Yachi has only one thought as she stares at those jam-stained lips, the hands that carry dragons, the chick-flick irises full of wonder.

_Baby dragons may be sweet,_ Yachi thinks as her eyes flutter shut. _But dragonfruit is sweeter._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks!! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed reading it back - this was a piece I detested while writing because I thought it was terrible, but it's not actually too bad looking back on it now. AO3-worthy, at least!
> 
> Kiyoko and Yachi might seem a little out of character in this chapter, but I love the idea of Kiyoko being internally foul-mouthed and Yachi just done with everything: since they're so shy, however, only 4am dragon-catching escapades can draw those personalities into the open.
> 
> Thanks to my fabulous beta, Kev, as always ~
> 
> Please leave a comment if you liked! You'll get a virtual Kiyoko-hug if you do (just kidding)
> 
> \- Ish (dancingwithwings)

**Author's Note:**

> Update soon! Please comment if you enjoyed <3


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